The following was written by theologian LeRon Shults, and was sent out in today’s Emergent/C (the newsletter of emergent).
“The coordinators of Emergent have often been asked (usually by their critics) to proffer a doctrinal statement that lays out clearly what they believe. I am merely a participant in the conversation who delights in the ongoing reformation that occurs as we bring the Gospel into engagement with culture in ever new ways. But I have been asked to respond to this ongoing demand for clarity and closure. I believe there are several reasons why Emergent should not have a “statement of faith” to which its members are asked (or required) to subscribe. Such a move would be unnecessary, inappropriate and disastrous.
“Why is such a move unnecessary? Jesus did not have a “statement of faith.” He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent. The very idea of a “statement of faith” is mired in modernist assumptions and driven by modernist anxieties – and this brings us to the next point.
“Such a move would be inappropriate. Various communities throughout church history have often developed new creeds and confessions in order to express the Gospel in their cultural context, but the early modern use of linguistic formulations as “statements” that allegedly capture the truth about God with certainty for all cultures and contexts is deeply problematic for at least two reasons. First, such an approach presupposes a (Platonic or Cartesian) representationalist view of language, which has been undermined in late modernity by a variety of disciplines across the social and physical sciences (e.g., sociolinguistics and paleo-biology). Why would Emergent want to force the new wine of the Spirit’s powerful transformation of communities into old modernist wineskins? Second, and more importantly from a theological perspective, this fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends and embraces all finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from another. The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.
“Why would it be disastrous? Emergent aims to facilitate a conversation among persons committed to living out faithfully the call to participate in the reconciling mission of the biblical God. Whether it appears in the by-laws of a congregation or in the catalog of an educational institution, a “statement of faith” tends to stop conversation. Such statements can also easily become tools for manipulating or excluding people from the community. Too often they create an environment in which real conversation is avoided out of fear that critical reflection on one or more of the sacred propositions will lead to excommunication from the community. Emergent seeks to provide a milieu in which others are welcomed to join in the pursuit of life “in” the One who is true (1 John 5:20). Giving into the pressure to petrify the conversation in a “statement” would make Emergent easier to control; its critics could dissect it and then place it in a theological museum alongside other dead conceptual specimens the curators find opprobrious. But living, moving things do not belong in museums. Whatever else Emergent may be, it is a movement committed to encouraging the lively pursuit of God and to inviting others into a delightfully terrifying conversation along the way.
“This does not mean, as some critics will assume, that Emergent does not care about belief or that there is no role at all for propositions. Any good conversation includes propositions, but they should serve the process of inquiry rather than shut it down. Emergent is dynamic rather than static, which means that its ongoing intentionality is (and may it ever be) shaped less by an anxiety about finalizing state-ments than it is by an eager attention to the dynamism of the Spirit’s disturbing and comforting presence, which is always reforming us by calling us into an ever-intensifying participation in the Son’s welcoming of others into the faithful embrace of God.”
Peace, dwight
Dr. LeRon explains why the Emergent™ organization will not write a “Statement of Faith.” Yet the Emergent website offers a lengthy declaration of something very similar:
http://www.emergentvillage.com/Site/Belong/Order/index.htm
Written in the language of a religious order, Emergent calls this statement their “Membership Order & Rule.” While it may not be a traditional statement of faith, it certainly has many similar characteristics. The “Emergent Rule” requires all those professing identity with the Emergent Organization to:
1.) Participate in historic Xn faith
2.) Love God and God’s truth
3.) Honor and serve the church
4.) Be humble and repentant
5.) Seek peace among followers of Christ
6.) Seek healing and blessing for the earth
7.) Seek reconciliation with enemies
8.) Be involved with issues of peace and justice
9.) Make an annual pilgrimage to the Emergent gathering
10.) Publicly confess self-identity with Emergent™
11.) Be centered in Jesus and his message of the Kingdom of God
12.) Pray, meditate, study, serve….
These rules are precious and godly [save for #10 :-)]. I love the Emergent guys and have deep respect for their shepherd hearts and desire to be principal branches in Christ’s universal vine. I’ve read many of their books and blogs and am constantly delighted and deeply moved by their fresh, creative, artistic vision for the church.
But my questions remain: (1) is this fresh move of God’s Spirit (often called emergence) enhanced or hindered by formal, centralized organization? (2) does emerging faith require centrally organized “Order & Rule?” (3) do emerging Xn friends really want or need a “brand” (logo/flag) to identify with? (4) is a “confessional allegiance” with the Emergent organization something that postmoderns find generally attractive or repelling? (5) will like-minded Christians organically emerge within their local community, or must this emerging community be coordinated by a centralized organization? 6) most importantly, will coordinating organizations like Emergent add “positive incremental effectiveness” to the proclamation of Christ in a post-foundational culture, or will such global organizations tend to co-opt and polarize the local, organic nature of emerging faith?
The more I consider these questions, the less clear it becomes. At first, I was repelled by the idea of an organization attempting to “franchise” a religious movement. As I look into it deeper, I’m less clear – alternate notions of organizational shepherding should be explored. (1) can we consider alternative, sustainable methods of centralized religious organization that harmonize with an emerging post-foundational culture? (2) can we integrate and infuse a deeper sense of artistic mission and creative inspiration into concentric religious organization? (3) can we achieve centralized “Coordination and Rule” while remaining missional and identity neutral? (4) can a global organization look more like the first century church and less like a dualistic/polarized industrial-religious business model?
Within the noise, the church is sending clear signals that vertical/centralized “Rule” is losing favor among next-gens. This is not saying that a global “memotic conversation” will not increasingly inform local communities of faith. Rather, culturally dying models of “vertical coordination” will likely be abandoned in favor of deeply horizontal, locally sustainable community and governance. Rather than a select group of poet laureates sending down imperatives, the church we’re dreaming about is more like poetry that we all write together. If this awesome emerging conversation is truly God-breathed, we can’t stay in front of it, nor on top of it. We must walk along side of it and within it, all of us.
Maybe this is all about temperament? The rebels among us cringe at organizational layering and brand/identity mongering. But certainly there are others who want the ideological “security and stability” of joining and following a pre-defined “Order & Rule” – with clearly structured vertical management, a high-profile board of directors, by-laws, confessional, tithing structure, and well-defined identity. OK, I get that. But…
There’s a website which now lists over 4,500 links to individuals and organizations who, in some capacity, consider themselves part of the postmodern Xn faith conversation. I’ve only explored a fraction of these sites, but nowhere have I found any person or group assuming to have some “special brand” of postmodern identity or “Rule” that would seek others to “join” their particular “movement.” For better or worse, this seems to set Emergent apart from the greater conversation with implied ownership and a new way of clarifying “who’s in” and “who’s out.”
Thanks for letting me rant. JL
9.) Make an annual pilgrimage to the Emergent gathering
I am poor and can no way ever afford to pilgrimage to anything Emergent. Damm, I was so close to being in.
Tim
It’s an interesting discussion, one which the anti-emergent mob have enjoyed heckling. I saw one blogger using the fact that emergent have not got a doctrinal statement to show how far astray we can be led if we don’t use the King James Version, which mentions doctrine 13,463,911 times. Or something.
Meanwhile, I think there is something of a difference between a rule, based on praxis and focus on an ethical-practical centre, and a statement/creed which necessitates an assent to an irreducible minimum. I know that there are some days on which I could sign my church’s statement of faith and others on which I couldn’t. However, I think the community benefits from some kind of statement of direction or mission, which does not necessitate the definition of an irreducible minimum.
There’s a discussion of this just kicking off on http://www.santafetrail.blogspot.com. I’m sure your input would be appreciated – and no that isn’t my blog!
Ahem. It’s mine. Thanks for the shameless publicity boxthejack – and no, I didn’t ask him to post that! 😉
The way I see it at the moment, our praxis and idea of ‘church’ (ecclesiology) are founded on our idea of our mission (missiology), which is itself based on the person of Jesus Christ (Christology). So, if WHAT WE DO is going to make any sense, it needs to be an expression of WHAT WE BELIEVE about Jesus. Incarnational, missional church is a reflection of our belief in the Incarnate, Missional God.
Emergent have done a good thing in avoiding a “statement of faith”. The emphasis on praxis is a good one. But I think this very emphasis calls for a confession (a better word than ‘statement’ I think) of the kind made at Nicaea, to direct and motivate our praxis. Crucially, this confession cannot be a boundary-setting device: more a desire to “renew the center” (Grenz)